Mark Solomon joined DC VELOCITY as senior editor in August 2008, and was promoted to his current position on January 1, 2015. He has spent more than 30 years in the transportation, logistics and supply chain management fields as a journalist and public relations professional. From 1989 to 1994, he worked in Washington as a reporter for the Journal of Commerce, covering the aviation and trucking industries, the Department of Transportation, Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to that, he worked for Traffic World for seven years in a similar role. From 1994 to 2008, Mr. Solomon ran Media-Based Solutions, a public relations firm based in Atlanta. He graduated in 1978 with a B.A. in journalism from The American University in Washington, D.C.
The country's logistics infrastructure stretching from New England down to Virginia and west into
Ohio and the Great Lakes braced today for the arrival of Hurricane Sandy, a potential mega-storm
threatening to disrupt freight services for days and perhaps as long as a week or more.
As of 4 pm Eastern Time on Monday, the storm was about 100 miles from making landfall around Atlantic
City, N.J., according to projections from Earth Networks, a Germantown, Md.-based environmental research
firm that also operates a weather center. But the storm, which is expected to hit land late this evening
or very early Tuesday, was already wreaking havoc on low-lying coastlines from North Carolina to New
Jersey, with the worst of it well ahead for the region, said Mark Hoekzema, Earth Networks' chief meteorologist.
The hurricane is expected to collide with a cold front coming from the West, which is likely to increase Sandy's
ferocity. The cold front will also pull the storm westward and delay it from following a normal East Coast tropical storm's
path of speeding up the Seaboard before heading towards the Canadian Maritimes and then out to sea. As a result, the storm
is expected to linger through Wednesday across a 500-mile area populated by 50 million people. By Thursday, Sandy should
weaken as it heads eastbound towards the Atlantic.
Adding to the angst is that the storm will hit during a full moon that will raise already high tides
even more. An expected storm surge around midnight could raise water levels to 11 feet above normal high
tide, depending on the location.
In the Great Lakes, a key shipping point, wave heights could reach 22 to 31 feet. The Lakes,
however, will not experience storm surges that are more common in coastal areas. In a phenomenon
that Hoekzema said he's never seen before from a tropical storm, blizzard conditions are likely to
envelop high-elevation levels in the Appalachian region.
Hoekzema said wind gusts of 30 to 70 miles per hour, combined with downed trees, power lines,
traffic signals, and maybe as much as a foot of standing water from rainfall, will cause severe
disruptions to freight and passenger transportation systems. "It will be a number of days before it
gets back to normal," he said, noting that millions will be without power at least through the rest
of the week and possibly into the weekend.
Heavy rains and enormous waves will buffet the St. Lawrence Seaway, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and
Lake Huron, causing extended shipping delays, he said.
In a statement, FedEx Corp. said it is prepared to "provide service to the best of our ability" in the
affected areas. The Memphis-based company urged shippers to "contact your recipients to verify whether their
location is open or able to receive deliveries" before and after the storm. The storm may leave hundreds of
damaged facilities in its wake and could keep thousands away from work for days.
"Shipments not delivered, due to road closures and local restrictions, will be secured in one of our facilities,"
the statement said. "Delivery will be attempted when it is safe to do so."
UPS Inc. has routed its European flights bound for East Coast points like Philadelphia and Newark, N.J.,
to its primary air hub in Louisville, Ky. The Atlanta-based company's information technology (IT) facilities
in New Jersey and Maryland are closed for normal operations, but employees are working remotely to process
shipment information, according to Susan L. Rosenberg, a UPS spokeswoman. Any IT-related contingencies will
be handled at the company's data center in Alpharetta, Ga., a northern suburb of Atlanta, she said.
Rosenberg said UPS performed limited delivery this morning in Manhattan. However, it avoided the low-lying lower
Manhattan area that may bear the brunt of the storm surge as it makes landfall, she said. Some facilities of UPS
Freight, the company's less-than-truckload (LTL) arm, have already closed, she said.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey's marine terminals and the Port of Virginia have closed. As of
this morning, the Port Authority's four airports remained open, but airlines had canceled flights there.
CSX Corp. and Norfolk Southern Corp., the two main Eastern railroads, are telling customers to expect at least
three days of traffic delays in the affected areas. In a statement on its web site, Jacksonville, Fla.-based CSX
said its network has been closed from Richmond, Va., to Albany, N.Y. The closure extends as far west as Brunswick,
Md., CSX said.
Norfolk-based Norfolk Southern said in its web alert that it was experiencing traffic delays on its system. However, the alert did not say that the system had been shut down.
Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Their pursuit of those roadmaps is often complicated by frequent disruptions and the rapid pace of technological innovation. But Gartner says those leaders can accelerate the realized value of technology investments by facilitating a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” said Dawkins. “Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
The U.S. manufacturing sector has become an engine of new job creation over the past four years, thanks to a combination of federal incentives and mega-trends like nearshoring and the clean energy boom, according to the industrial real estate firm Savills.
While those manufacturing announcements have softened slightly from their 2022 high point, they remain historically elevated. And the sector’s growth outlook remains strong, regardless of the results of the November U.S. presidential election, the company said in its September “Savills Manufacturing Report.”
From 2021 to 2024, over 995,000 new U.S. manufacturing jobs were announced, with two thirds in advanced sectors like electric vehicles (EVs) and batteries, semiconductors, clean energy, and biomanufacturing. After peaking at 350,000 news jobs in 2022, the growth pace has slowed, with 2024 expected to see just over half that number.
But the ingredients are in place to sustain the hot temperature of American manufacturing expansion in 2025 and beyond, the company said. According to Savills, that’s because the U.S. manufacturing revival is fueled by $910 billion in federal incentives—including the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS and Science Act, and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act—much of which has not yet been spent. Domestic production is also expected to be boosted by new tariffs, including a planned rise in semiconductor tariffs to 50% in 2025 and an increase in tariffs on Chinese EVs from 25% to 100%.
Certain geographical regions will see greater manufacturing growth than others, since just eight states account for 47% of new manufacturing jobs and over 6.3 billion square feet of industrial space, with 197 million more square feet under development. They are: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Tennessee.
Across the border, Mexico’s manufacturing sector has also seen “revolutionary” growth driven by nearshoring strategies targeting U.S. markets and offering lower-cost labor, with a workforce that is now even cheaper than in China. Over the past four years, that country has launched 27 new plants, each creating over 500 jobs. Unlike the U.S. focus on tech manufacturing, Mexico focuses on traditional sectors such as automative parts, appliances, and consumer goods.
Looking at the future, the U.S. manufacturing sector’s growth outlook remains strong, regardless of the results of November’s presidential election, Savills said. That’s because both candidates favor protectionist trade policies, and since significant change to federal incentives would require a single party to control both the legislative and executive branches. Rather than relying on changes in political leadership, future growth of U.S. manufacturing now hinges on finding affordable, reliable power amid increasing competition between manufacturing sites and data centers, Savills said.
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.